GD Star Rating 1.8.0 will be released on january 3 2010. And that will be the end of the features cycle for 1.x versions. But, few days ago I have started working (planning mostly) the roadmap to next major version of the plugin: GD Star Rating 2.0.
GDSR 2.0 is targeted for release in early april 2010 (couple of weeks give or take). Until then there will be few bug fixing releases for 1.8 branch. For many reasons code of these two will be sepparated, on as soon as 1.8.0 is released it will be moved into the new branch, and trunk will be reserved for 2.0.
Here is what you can expect from this new version:
- Rewritten rating block rendering: this is the highest priority for 2.0, and will change the way the stars and thumbs are rendered, make the both code and generated HTML (also JS and CSS) lighter and faster.
- New format for stars and thumb images: each set will be in a single image (sprite method). Also, I will standardize sizes for thumbs and stars and add two more sizes. Plugin will have only 3 default sets, the rest will be for download only. Standard sizes will be 8×8, 12×12, 16×16, 20×20, 24×24, 32×32, 40×40, 48×48.
- Rating API and remote access: allow access to your ratings data from another website using simple requests. This will allow you to limit API access, and decide what API functions you want to allow.
- Custom elements for rating: right now posts and comments can be used for rating. But I will add support for custom objects or elements that can be anything you want (for instance, links).
- Code cleanup and optimization: many elements of the plugin will be rewritten for speed and less code. This includes many areas of the plugin.
- User based reward system: based on ratings user receive for any content, he will earn (or loose) points. This will include set of functions and filters to work with that data.
- New database layout: all database tables will be made from scratch. Number of tables will be lower, and there will be conversion utility to move old data to new tables.
…And more. These are the major things that will be focus of the 2.0, but there will be many other minor things like tools, settings, functions, actions and filters.
And again, I would like to point out to latest support changes that will be very important on the road to 2.0. This version will offer much more, and the only way for me to offer you quality support is payed support.
Leave your comments on the announced features.
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User-based reward system is the most intriguing feature for 2.0.
Hope to learn more about it when alpha/beta versions of 2.0 start to emerge.
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I agree with Ray, the idea of a user-based reward system is intriguing – an extremely useful version of this would emulate StackOverflow.com, with individual comments voted up or down, and users accumulating points/reputation according to how helpful their comments/answers are.
Gaining reputation is clearly a strong motivation (a lot of the users on StackOverflow and similar sites seem to be heavily addicted) and I can imagine uses for this far beyond just Question and Answer sites.
Can you imagine such a feature implemented on a BuddyPress site? Users could gain points for comments made anywhere, within any group or blog in that installation of BuddyPress, and their current score could be proudly displayed beneath their gravatar. That would be insanely great, especially when you consider how well the 1.2 version of BuddyPress, due to be released in late January, is shaping up (demo here: http://testbp.org/).
I believe that a lot of BuddyPress site owners would be willing to buy that as a premium plugin because, although they are impressed with BuddyPress, they are all struggling with the problem of motivating users and kick-starting communities. In fact, I think that the existence of such a plugin would, in itself, become a major reason to use BuddyPress, it would draw a lot of people into the WordPress and BuddyPress world.
A social network is the perfect platform for a points system because users want to impress friends and to establish themselves within groups, I think this could be the ultimate incarnation of GDSR.
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Since many things for GDSR 2.0 will be rewritten from scratch, I will try to find time and do the integration with WPMU/BP. I have already rewritten stars and thumbs rendering and CSS and made it much cleaner, and many more things will be changed.
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A BuddyPress user-reward system will be extremely useful… and at the same time, challenging to code!
Millan, you should check out DJPaul’s Achievements plugin for BuddyPress, which does something similar.
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To my impression, I’d love to know if we can config gdstar like ‘WP Review Site’ plugin where we can set categories to review? I am currently using this, but would like to give gdstar a shot as there seem more features to explore.
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Of course you can. GD Star Rating is the ultimate rating plugin for WordPress with most features and extreme flexibility.
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Thx a lot for reply. Hope to get gdstar to work with most themes. WP Review Site seems to have trouble integrating with some complex themes.
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“cant wait” for the user based reward system!
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